Children Of The Crucible

Sami

Sami's PoV

One day down, only 2 years 179 days to go.

At least I had a friend who hated school as much as me.

I walked along the pavement thinking about what I needed to do when I got home. We moved in to our new house last week and I still have a crap ton of stuff to unpack and tidy. I genuinely can't be bothered with that sort of manual labour.

Deep in thought, I didn't pay attention to where I was going and slipped on ice, true Sami style, right in the open. I heard a smothered laugh behind me. Someone, a guy behind me, had seen. Ugh. Great.

Desperate to get the humiliation over as quickly as possible, I stood up too quickly and fell right back down onto the ice, my long hair falling over my face. The guy behind me saw my expression and was actually decent enough to come over and see if I was ok. He could have done that the first time around but better late than never I guess. Hauling me up, he smiled at me and told me his name.

"I'm Blair. Hey, aren't you the new kid?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

I was naturally on the defensive because when I moved house last year everyone picked on me simply for being the 'new girl'. It was a relief to get out of that prison.

"Woah no reason kid, just asking. You stay down Bridge street don't you? That's the same street as me! How cool is that?"

"Oh yeah total phenomenon, two people living on the same street." I couldn't stop the words coming out my mouth. I was so used to having to defend myself. "And gonna stop calling me kid for goodness sake. It's doing my head in." I gave up even attempting to be friendly.

"You're a right sarcastic one, aren't you? I'm just trying to be nice ki- I mean, uh, what's your name again?"

"Too right I am. And it's Sami."

"Cool, well see ya at school."

Before I could reply he had turned and walked away, probably going to one of his mates' houses. Brushing off my skirt, I place my earphones back in my ears and head home, humming along to the music and taking care not to slip on the tremendous ice rink that the pavement was.

As soon as I got in the house I was greeted by my parents. Don't get me wrong, I freaking love them but they're rather overprotective, and that's just how they acted when I walked through the door.

"Honey where have you been? You were due home 3 minutes ago."

Yeah, this is what I have to deal with. I couldn't even explain that I was talking to some guy after I made a fool of myself in public because they would just fuss over me more in case I'd hurt myself. Honestly, it's a problem.

"Sorry, I was talking to my business teacher about what parts of the course I'd already covered back at my old school."

I mean it wasn't technically a lie, my business teacher did indeed quiz me on this topic, right at the beginning of the lesson.

"Ok, fancy giving us a hand unpacking these last few boxes?"

"Sorry, I've still got my whole room to unpack, I'll help you later."

As if I was actually gonna bother unpacking. That would take way too much effort.

I walked past my parents into the kitchen to make myself a coffee, because coffee, and walked up the stairs to my bedroom. As I walked in, I noticed my bratty little sister, Lottie, hiding under the bed.

"Can you not play hide and seek in my room, for goodness sake. Go hide somewhere where your friends might actually have a freaking chance of finding you. You know they're not gonna come in here. They better not."

"Oh I'm very sorry, your highness."

She stuck her tongue out at me and wandered away out of the room. She hadn't had any trouble making new friends. She started going to this dancing club on Saturday and invited the whole blooming squad round. She'd only known them for a day. It was honestly too much to deal with: a 10 year old sister who acts four, inviting the whole street over to play, and a pair of fussy parents who didn't even let me fry an egg without panicking that I was gonna burn the whole place down. Plus, my mum was always on my back trying to get me to 'branch out', like Lottie did. Well, I did have one friend. And I guess one associate if you counted Blair.

With my coffee on my table, I climbed over the pile of boxes, grabbed my book and flopped down on my floral print duvet to read.